Julius Lester: 10 books

“A stunning autobiographical odyssey” by one of the civil rights era’s most provocative and persuasive voices (The Washington Post Book World). Julius Lester was born the son of a black Methodist minister in the south. His book Lovesong is a beautifully written account of his spiritual...

From Introduction: "Huddie Ledbetter, nicknamed Leadbelly, died in December, 1949 at the age of 64. He had come out of the deep South, settled down in a little apartment on New York's lower East Side, determined to build a successful career as a musician. Unfortunately, there was not much interest...

There are times when a tree can no longer withstand the pain inflicted on it, and the wind will take pity on that tree and topple it over in a mighty storm. All the other trees who witnessed the evil look down upon the fallen tree with envy. They pray for the day when a wind will end their suffering. I...

This is the story of Cupid--the god responsible for heartache, sleepless nights, and all those silly love songs—finally getting his comeuppance. When the god of love falls in love himself, things are bound to get interesting. And when he crosses his mama, Venus, in the process . . . Well, things...

Rebecca Nachman is a Rabbi without a synagogue. Having resigned from her dwindling congregation, she now works as a college counselor at a small Vermont college advising students about private matters and offering the "Jewish perspective" on issues raised at faculty dinner parties. Deeply...

Amma is the creator god, the master of life and death, and he is worried. His people have always known how to take care of the spirits of the dead – the nyama – so that they don't become destructive forces among the living. But amid the chaos of the African slave trade and the brutality of American...

In a gray fieldstone house in Nashville, Tennessee, the Reverend Joshua Smith Sr.--the staunch and gentle man known to thousands in black churches throughout the South as the Singing Evangelist and to one white reporter as "the Colored Billy Graham"--is trying to compose his own obituary...

Two short stories and one novella (all based on true stories) about love in the time of slavery. The first is about Ras, who helps other slaves escape, and ultimately escapes with his girlfriend, Sally. The second is about Maria, whose husband (a free black man) buys her but neglects to officially...

A novel of one man’s triumph and tragedy in the civil rights era—from an author who “belongs with writers like William Faulkner and Ralph Ellison” (The Washington Post). When John Calvin Marshall graduated from Harvard in 1956, he was prepared for a life of teaching and relative tranquility....

A brother and sister cope with loss and trauma—and fight to keep what’s left of their family together—in a “compelling” novel by a Newbery Honor Medal winner.   Jenna and Jeremy knew their parents’ marriage was in trouble. That was pretty obvious. But no one who knew the family could...